Cameroon and San Marino, just two of the countries from where someone has stopped by to read my blog from in the past 12 hours. I truly love this world where someone like me can be sat apparently isolated from the world, yet thanks to the internet people from countries I have heard of, but know little about, just stop for a moment to read the ramblings of a middle-aged woman. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be housebound without the internet, I know many still are, even the other day there was a comment left by someone who is reading because their Mother has MS and they want to understand what is happening to her more deeply, but she isn’t online, the hours of her day must go on forever. I have to say that it is one of the few things that I thank my first husband for as back in 1986 we had one of the first home PC, nothing like today’s but enough to get me interested. Anyone who had a PC back then also had the whole idea that you could break it with just a touch, also removed as if you wanted to do anything, you first had to program it, probably why when it came to the point that I needed my PC to do much of my work for me, programming was a natural step. When I received the final payment from him following our divorce, I purchased my first real PC and I was in just days, online and I never looked backed, from then onwards life without the internet seemed unthinkable. I am not a fan of the new touch screen systems that is everywhere these days and anyone who would like to try and separate me from my baby who despite being five years old now, still purrs and flies as perfectly as the day I bought her and makes life bearable, would find that pain or not, a she-wolf ready to kill. Having said that, I doubt there is a person on this planet who couldn’t very quickly be taught how to use a tablet and I also know without a doubt that it changes lives. I would go as far as to say that if there is anyone out there over the age of 40 who isn’t already using at least a smartphone their families need to take them in hand and teach them to, as one day, through health or age, they will be grateful beyond words that someone taught them. Life is strange that way, I never thought that other than for the birth of my daughter there would be anything I would look back and thank my first husband for, but I just have, I guess we never know what from our past, or our present will actually be the root into our futures.
The bi-weekly shop just arrived, it’s probably the last of the household chores that I still do, not that entering the details into a website and opening the door for the delivery guy to drop it all off in the hallway, is really a chore. Adam has offered several times to take it over but it is something that I hold onto tightly, not just because I know without a doubt that the shopping that would arrive would have most of what we need missing, proved by the fact that over the past 6 months he still hasn’t managed to write a full list, but that more importantly, it is the last thing that I do. I didn’t really notice most of the other household things going, as it was a drip, drip process. First, it was the heavy housework, anything that needed a ladder really, cleaning windows, bringing down and putting back the curtains when they needed washing. Then more and more of the housework, the hardest part of it wasn’t letting him get on with it, but the fact it has never been done or kept at the level I would say is done properly. Pin perfect it’s not, but I did 4 hours of housework daily, yes and holding down a full-time job and still cooking meals daily from scratch, I was an old fashioned housewife, he is a modern male, our personal standards will never match. I went through the same problems with handing over the laundry, other than a couple of my get mad and do it spells, I haven’t seen the laundry basket totally empty for years. It may on first reading this that I am taking an opportunity to take a dig at Adam for not doing it the way I believe it should be done, but I’m not.
All of us have roles in life that without sounding patronising to anyone, they define us, I know many women will be screaming at me right now for implying that housework could possibly define any modern woman, but it does, like it or not, but it also defines a lot of men as well. We are these days truly defined by our value to society, what a paid work lives say about us. I had a highly pressurised job, being the Operations Manager and totally responsible for the actual functioning of the company and call centre, plus supplying all the company reporting it pressure. When you meet someone new they ask “what do you do?” and we always say what our job is, we don’t say all the other things we do, so that is our first definition, our second is when we bring them into our homes and regardless of what our job is, our homes actually show the real us, not just by its style, but also by how we care for it. I have never understood why, but almost everyone who meets me is shocked when they first saw my home, they for some reason never seemed to expect what they saw when they entered my front door. Our homes are us, not just the mental capacity to earn money, they are the windows to the real person, the one that lives inside the persona we show the world and as an ex-manager, I would say the perfect place to interview future staff. A visit to someone’s home shows you how organised they are, how much attention they give to detail and style, whatever their style is. Are they fussy, busy people, or relaxed and laid back, do they have piles of stuff lying around or perfectly organised not just on the surface, but in cupboards and draws as well. Is their home cluttered or positioned and displayed, how much attention do they pay to cleanliness, it is sparse and modernist or comfy and homely, it goes on and on, our homes are the real extension of us. When you see a home in that fashion, to then have it in many ways ripped away from you is painful. Not having my home perfect to me, is as painful as having had part of my amputated and left forever bleeding. It is another daily pain that over the years like all the rest of the pain I live with has become an undertone to my life, that I can do nothing to change. There are millions of people around the world who would love to never have to do housework ever again, I would do anything to just be able to do it once more and to once more see my home pin perfect.
Losing abilities from the tiniest ones to the most major we can imagine, is painful. The first one for me where my dexterity and that for me took away all of my hobbies, as I loved all of the old fashioned handy crafts and my creative DIY. Then went balance, which took the last of the DIY and as my energy vanished slowly everything else did too. Being unable to thread a needle was just as a painful, as not being able to use my wheelchair anymore, the size of the loss as other see it aren’t the way each of us will feel it. If you love doing something, to loose it causes grief, not just because you are losing an ability, but because the truth is, you are losing part of you. And unlike an amputation where the limb is never seen again, most of our losses are there in front of our eyes every minute of every day.
Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 28/10/12 – Dreams to the future
Two Rooms Plus Utilities 